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From: felsenst@entropy.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Mushroom Theory
Message-ID: <544@entropy.ms.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, 4-Mar-87 01:42:21 EST
Article-I.D.: entropy.544
Posted: Wed Mar  4 01:42:21 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Mar-87 06:33:09 EST
References: <376@sri-arpa.ARPA> <1320@zeus.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: uw-evolution!joe@entropy.UUCP (Joe Felsenstein)
Organization: Dept. Genetics, Univ. of Washington
Lines: 19
Summary: Mushrooms are mere mortals like ourselves

The difficulty with the theory that "mushrooms" are extraterrestrials
is that, not only does their DNA turn out to be like other earth life's,
but more specifically when a part of their DNA or RNA is sequenced and
compared with that of other earth life forms, one can construct
an evolutionary tree (phylogeny) which places them in an unexotic
position.  It seems there are three major multicellular forms of life:
animals, plants and fungi.  The details of cell ultrastructure support
the conclusion that fungi are eukaryotes (proud possessors of
ordinary nucleated cells) like ourselves, plants, and protists.

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of certain kinds of fungi.  They
disappear during periods when the rest of the organism is happily
making its living growing underground.  No amount of astronomy is
going to explain the enormous diversity of life styles of fungi
(an extraterrestrial explanation of bread mold life styles, anyone?).

--------------------------------
Joe Felsenstein, Dept. of Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
e-mail:  uw-evolution!joe%entropy.ms.washington.edu@wally.cs.washington.edu